One of the most impressive things about Only Murders in the Building has been the famous faces who have appeared on the show. The number of genuine legends to act in a variety of roles is mind-boggling.
In honor of the show’s fifth season, which premieres on Hulu on September 9, we’re counting down the five best cameos in the show’s history while trying to figure out how to draw the line between a cameo and something else. One important note upfront is that the great Meryl Streep is in too much of it to qualify.
Sting as himself
Sting’s appearance on Only Murders signaled the show would be filled with cameos, and that some of those special castings might come from unexpected places. One of the great jokes of the show’s first season is that Sting is, for a brief moment, the prime suspect in the killing of Tim Kono.
He’s only in two episodes of the show, but because he was so willing to play a funny, loosely fictionalized version of himself, Sting set the template for what all of the show’s most high-profile guests have done in the years since he appeared.
Paul Rudd as Ben Glenroy and Glen Stubbins
While Paul Rudd blurred the line between regular cast member and cameo, his initial appearance as Ben Glenroy certainly qualifies for the latter. Rudd is the murder victim in the show’s third season. Even though his character’s dead, we still get more than our fair share of time with him.
Rudd was another early example a big name the show had in its pocket. The fact that Rudd stuck around to play Glen Stubbins, Ben’s Irish stunt double, in the show’s fourth season speaks to just how fun it must be to make this show.
Tina Fey
Tina Fey appears in several seasons of the show, but her role is essentially one extended joke, a pretty good one, for that matter. Fey portrays the host of a rival podcast to the one hosted by our central trio and often one-ups them or works to steal their thunder.
Although Fey is a gifted comedian in many areas, she is uniquely well-suited to play a sort of pseudo-Sarah Koenig, someone with the kind of soothing voice and middle-aged white woman energy that feels like she’s a natural fit to sit behind a microphone and describe a wide variety of crimes in excruciating levels of detail.
Zach Galifianakis, Eva Longoria, and Eugene Levy
These three cameos were actually more like one, and they came during the gang’s time in Hollywood. Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, and Zach Galifianakis are hired to play Charles, Mabel, and Oliver, respectively, and each of them have a fairly hilarious time engaging with their characters.
Levy decides to try to understand everything about Charles, Longoria is just hawking her products, and Galifianakis is just looking to get paid. Between the three of them, they made season 4 an even greater delight, even though they weren’t actually in very much of the show.
Melissa McCarthy
Melissa McCarthy remains one of the funniest actors working in Hollywood today, and she turned in a deeply funny and slightly deranged performance on Only Murders. She plays Doreen, Charles’s sister, on the show and is perhaps best remembered for the physical altercation she gets into with Meryl Streep’s Loretta.
McCarthy and Streep coming to blows is probably not something you ever thought you’d see on television. Yet it’s a rare joy that only a show as star-studded as Only Murders is capable of providing.
